Wednesday, 4 June 2014

'Quaker Basics' - Worship

What was the Quaker
Basics session on worship really about?

A few weeks ago, by
request we posted a ‘handout’ from the session. It was called
‘Quaker Practices about Ministry’. But the handout was merely an
add–on to the main part of the session. So what was the
session about?

We talked about four
aspects of worship: the nature of Quaker worship, silence and
stillness, ministry, and silence and ministry in our daily lives.
Mostly we referred to sections from QF&P, and George Gorman’s
‘The Amazing Fact of Quaker Worship’.

We thought about
silence and stillness in terms of prayer, drawing on George Gorman
p.37 (centring down) and p.39 (the ‘gathered meeting’). I’m so
sorry I can’t quote these because I went and lent my copy to
someone! In 1937 Rufus Jones wrote of ‘the intensified hush’:

QF&P 2.16

[The
early Friends] made the discovery that silence is one of the best
preparations for communion [with God] and for the reception of
inspiration and guidance. Silence itself, of course, has no magic. It
may be just sheer emptiness, absence of words or noise or music. It
may be an occasion for slumber, or it may be a dead form. But it may
be an intensified pause, a vitalised hush, a creative quiet, an
actual moment of mutual and reciprocal correspondence with God.

Rufus
Jones, 1937

In the ‘ministry’
aspect we thought about ministry from three angles: in Meeting for
Worship, practical ministry (to minister = to serve), and outreach.
Mainly but not completely we focused on ministry in Meeting for
Worship, both vocal and non-vocal.

QF&P
10.05

We
recognise a variety of ministries. In our worship these include those
who speak under the guidance of the Spirit, and those who receive and
uphold the work of the Spirit in silence and prayer. We also
recognise as ministry service on our many committees, hospitality and
childcare, the care of finance and premises, and many other tasks. We
value those whose ministry is not in an appointed task but is in
teaching, counselling, listening, prayer, enabling the service of
others, or other service in the meeting or the world.

The
purpose of all our ministry is to lead us and other people into
closer communion with God and to enable us to carry out those tasks
which the Spirit lays upon us.

London
Yearly Meeting, 1986

QF&P
2.66

Ministry
is what is on one’s soul, and it can be in direct contradiction to
what is on one’s mind. It’s what the Inner Light gently pushes
you toward or suddenly dumps in your lap. It is rooted in the
eternity, divinity, and selflessness of the Inner Light; not in the
worldly, egoistic functions of the conscious mind.

Marrianne
McMullen, 1987

We
acknowledged the challenges of worship in our daily lives.

QF&P
2.18, 2.20 and 2.21

Be
still and cool in thy own mind …….

George
Fox, 1658

Do
you make a place in your daily life for reading, meditation, and
waiting upon God in prayer, that you may know more of the presence
and guidance of the Holy Spirit? Do you remember the need to pray for
others, holding them in the presence of God?

Queries,
1964

I
read that I was supposed to make ‘a place for inward retirement and
waiting upon God’ in my daily life, as the Queries
in those days expressed it… At last I began to realise, first that
I needed some kind of inner peace, or inward retirement, or whatever
name it might be called by; and then that these apparently stuffy old
Friends were really talking sense. If I studied what they were trying
to tell me, I might possibly find that the ‘place of inward
retirement’ was not a place I had to go to, it was there all the
time. I could know the ‘place of inward retirement’ wherever I
was, or whatever I was doing, and find the spiritual refreshment for
which, knowingly or unknowingly, I was longing, and hear the voice of
God in my heart. Thus I began to realise that prayer was not a
formality, or an obligation, it was a place
which was there all the time and always available.

Elfrida
Vipont Foulds, 1983

In
small groups, we used the creative listening process to consider
these four questions:

What are you
seeking in a Meeting for Worship?

How do you ‘centre
down’ or enter the silence? What gets in the way?

How do you respond
to ‘Quaker routines’ about ministry?

Does your life
feel different or changed from being associated with Friends? If so,
how?

These
questions have stayed with me since the session, making me re-visit
my initial thoughts. What would your
thoughts be?